We would be lying if we'd tell you that Prescott is a revolutionary design. The core is based on the P7 design that made its first appearance around the end of 2001. Named 'Willamette', it came in 1.4 and 1.5GHz. Since then some improvements have been made: the socket changed from 423 pins to a smaller version with 478 pins. The amount of L2 cache was doubled, the die-size is reduced to 0.13 micron and the FSB has increased from 400 to 533MHz, to produce the core we now know as Northwood. The first chip to boast this core was the 2.0Ghz Pentium IV, which was launched early this year. Now, some months further in time, there have been some tweaks in the steppings and the P4 3.06GHz is knocking on our door.
Thanks to some tweaking-fanatics (yes, you even find them in Intel) we now know that the current core will easily go up to 4.0GHz, possibly even 4.6GHz. That would mean a part of the core would be running at a rate of 8 or 9.2GHz. Of course, heat problems will arise, but some good cooling could solve those and anyway, what would you rather have: a lot of heat to get rid off, or a core that just doesn't go any higher?
But Northwood won't be with us for ever, some more releases in 2003 and the core will have to make way for a newer design, codenamed Prescott. Just like AMD's K8, the Prescott will contain some new features. Here's what we can expect to find:
HyperThreading
Hyperthreading is a much talked about feature, but all this technique does is use the optimal amount of power available by acting as if two threads are running at the same time. Of course, this won't give you the same speed as a dual-CPU configuration, but a 20 percent inprovement in multi-tasking environments will be possible. Those of you who have been following the reports lately will have noticed that HTT isn't new: the Xeon series has it and soon the Northwood will support it too. Prescott, however, will probably contain a improved version of HTT. It's sure that some minor glitches will be removed and it's said that the CPU might even have four threads ready for usage at any time, thus using its resources even better than the two-threaded version does. It's also possible that only the server-version of the Prescott, codenamed Nocona, will support this feature.
LaGrande
The name LaGrande was first heard at the Intel Developer Forum. It will be a part of the CPU that's especially security-minded. While the exact purpose of this function remains vague, it appears to be a hardware solution for encryption and/or hashing. There's nothing new about that, there are plenty PCI-cards that help to speed up the RSA algorithm, but it will be the first time such a thing will be implemented on such a wide scale. LaGrande will give us an advantage wherever we find encryption, and that's not just for secure data transfer or storage. Digital autographs for instance, could draw benefit from LaGrande. Also, when tracking changes in a system, a lot of principles from cryptology are used. The system that Microsoft invented, called Palladium, will probably use this function too.
LaGrande is a good idea, certainly when viewed from a PR-viewpoint. The more money is spent online and the more important security becomes while accessing data from the Internet, the bigger the demand for hacker-proof security systems will be. The Prescott can be introduced as a device that will make online shopping safer, improve privacy and make computers more reliable. It's not that such things are impossible without Prescott, but thanks to the RC5-64 project we know that the Pentium 4, when compared to the Pentium III and Athlon, isn't that good at working with RSA. It might be better at better algorithmes, but the fact remains that when security grows, the CPU's resources must too. LaGrande should help there, so maybe our Dutch Power Cows will profit from it too.
SSE3
The Pentium has MMX, the Pentium III has SSE, the Pentium IV could welcome SSE2 and Prescott will get SSE3. Although a lot of people doubt the use of these improvements, in practice, they do have their advantages. Not all software supports it, but those that do will get a nice performance boost. Drivers can also use the extra instructions, something nVidia thankfully implements to give their Detonators some extra performance from time to time. The exact benefits of SSE3 are not clear yet, although a part of it has been designed to support a new type of speach recognition that Intel is developing.